5. having knowledge of me from the first, if they be willing to testify, that after the straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.
6. And now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers;
7. unto which promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain. And concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, O king!
8. Why is it judged incredible with you, if God doth raise the dead?
9. I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
10. And this I also did in Jerusalem: and I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death I gave my vote against them.
11. And punishing them oftentimes in all the synagogues, I strove to make them blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities.
12. Whereupon as I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,
13. at midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them that journeyed with me.
14. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying unto me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the goad.